NC AI debuts next-gen 3D model with top benchmark scores

NC AI's next-generation 3D asset generation model VARCO 3D 2.0 / Courtesy of NC AI

NC AI, a Korean artificial intelligence (AI) company spun off from game developer NCSoft, has completed the development of VARCO 3D 2.0, the next generation of its 3D asset generation model, the company said Wednesday, claiming state-of-the-art performance on key global benchmarks.

VARCO 3D is a generative AI service that converts images or text prompts into three-dimensional digital assets — objects used in games, films, product simulations and industrial design. The new 2.0 model will roll out through the company's software-as-a-service platform in July.

NC AI said the 2.0 model scored 0.449 on the Uni3D metric, a standard measure of geometric similarity between a generated 3D object and its source image — a 40.8 percent improvement over the prior version's score of 0.319.

The company said the result surpasses competing open-source models including Trellis2 (0.436), Ultrashape (0.428) and Hunyuan3D 2.1 (0.427). It also claimed top scores on CLIP-N and ULIP-2 evaluations.

Key improvements in 2.0 center on shape fidelity — the degree to which a generated 3D model preserves the silhouette, proportions and surface detail of the original reference image.

The company said previous generation models frequently distorted geometry or lost fine structural detail, limiting their use in professional production environments. The new model also supports textures at up to 4K resolution, with the ability to render material properties such as metal, wood grain and surface wear.

The company positioned VARCO 3D as infrastructure for physical AI and digital twin applications — areas requiring large libraries of accurate 3D objects representing real-world items. It said the model can generate in roughly three minutes assets that would take a specialist approximately four weeks to build manually.

NC AI's chief executive said the model would help content creators, as well as manufacturing, defense and other industries accelerating digital transformation, while reducing Korea's dependence on U.S. and Chinese 3D AI technology.

This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.